With the introduction of the ‘Like’ button for web sites, Facebook has taken the first major step towards creating the semantic web. Amongst all the privacy related negative press Facebook is getting lately, we must not forget the fact that Facebook has been at the forefront of pioneering how we use social media networks on a daily basis to further enhance our Internet experience.
Imagine my surprise when I was reading an article on an obscure design related magazine’s web site only to realize that my friend (let’s call him John), Liked the very article I did. I didn’t even know he was into design. So I visited his Facebook profile and sent him a quick message asking him about his thoughts on the subject matter, which led to a very interesting conversation, which later led to us working together on a very lucrative venture in print design. Pretty crazy how that played out.
Similarly, another way this tool can be quite effective is to drive people to particular parts of the web site through newsfeeds. While going through the newsfeed, I stumble across a feed that states “Samantha Likes Yelp’s review of Ruby Tuesdays Restaurant in San Francisco”. Being interested at that point in time to check out a new restaurant in San Francisco, I simply click the link and end up reading the review which may sway me into actually going there for lunch.
Each user on average has (on average) approximately 150 Facebook friends. Some have a lot more than that. Each newsfeed item that is published is another potential 150 possible visitors. Because people’s friends are usually those who are in close proximity or share similar interests, these feeds are very effective in driving traffic to web sites. Reaching close to 500 million active users on Facebook, it is by far the largest social media network out there, which is exactly why this feature is so effective. It would simply not work without a large user-base to share information.
